Author: Jacques René Zammit

I have decided to start writing this article midweek rather than my usual last minute rush. What prompted this midweek fervour was the blackout that part of the islands depending on Melita suffered for approximately six hours. I’ve already written about how strange it is to be able to observe the silence of an island that has been gagged with no access to the ether. The various newspapers were down and there were no comments to aggravate the development of stomach ulcers. It was so quiet that it was eerily disturbing. I had to call for reassurance and yet all lines seemed to be busy.

I felt like I had been thrown in some Stephen King novel. What if the island had suddenly been engulfed by a freak tsunami and was the 21st century version of Atlantis? What a pity that Piano had not finished his buildings yet… they would have been a nice background for some scuba diving. There was also the possibility of a terrorist sabotage – you know the kind, those who cut off the phone lines and other forms of communication before sweeping in for the kill. Was the island of Joseph and Lawrence suddenly in the hands of New Age Pirates who had had enough of boarding oil tankers and had set their eyes on a whole nation to hijack?

The dead tones of the phones and the constant “webpage does not exist” might mean that the island actually DID vanish and had magically reappeared somewhere else… maybe in the middle of the Caribbean, much to the chagrin of all the right wingers who would not have time to celebrate the ridding of the African immigrants before realising that they would face boatloads of Haitians or Cubans threatening their newly oriented shores.

What if Malta had never really existed? What if the whole business of constantly grumpy commentators and the whole menagerie of political circus freaks was just another mental joke conjured up by a tired mind after a days’ work? What if it had all been an illusion and the various projects like Piano’s Gate, Mepa reform, Electoral reform and Smartmalta had been some sick joke of the brain? Yeah… what if Smartmalta was all some kind of joke?

Hold on. Maybe it is.

It comes as a bit of a surprise that President Obama is currently suffering a downturn in the polls and is as popular as George Bush and Richard Nixon were in the same period in their presidency. This is the period of budgetary planning, health care announcements and more importantly a little bungled issue on police and racist handling but Obama is definitely not cruising along as well as he had been predicted to.

Today’s Times (print edition) will include the figures relating to the declarations made by the EP candidates to the Electoral Commission. The public (or “the people”, if you want to irritate certain other “people”) will finally get to see how many of the candidates are prepared to exploit the “loophole” (J’accuse disagrees with this loophole business but it seems to be the received opinion of many) that considers candidates as candidates only from the day of registration.

Scideu il cada ia giereni tale nithadditchem. Illum, ium il mulei sitta ta guniou elphein u disa, iena Gakbu Sfi*o nerga insellmilchom uara assentsa piuttsost estisa. Mincheiia li isc-scoghol tieghi ilu nieches ammont tuil ta zmien nista niggarantisci illi bcaina deiiem inhuphu u nigru uara d-donna bendata mat-truphiiet chollha tad-dinia. Dan l-ahhar cbadniha tissielet geuua laboratoriu f’loch mistur sabiesc tohloch cochteil scin sabih ta mard illi irrizulta illi chien il-febbri porcina. Izda chiehed haun illum phil-vesti ta’ gurnalist sportiv sabiesc nirrelata l-avventuri spavaldi ta tim tal-futbol inter-istituttionali Malti illi nhar il-Hamis illi ghadda uettach displei pheroci ta’ calcio ophensiv. L’ophphisa principali chienet seuua seuua ghall-ghain ta’ min scehed ghall-livelli ta mediocrità assoluta illi intlahqu dachinhar mill-contingent malti. Chif ighidu l-prophessionali: spatiu ghall cronaca.

There’s a new kid on the Luxembourg expat blogging scene. Well, it seems that the new kid had been around for quite some time but not long enough to register on the J’accuse radar. That may have much to do with the fact that it is not really a blog but rather a column of sorts on online foodzine Planetmona. The kid goes by the name of  “Bitch de Lux” and judging by the contents of the  seven odd articles submitted hitherto to the foodzine what we have here is an aspirant “gossip girl” of sorts without the glamour and the glitz. It was only a matter of time before the bug of gossip blogging expanded beyond the realm of the orginator of the People’s (*) Village Gossip column. From what I can tell we are in for familiar tones of faux elitism, fashionista snobbery and a je ne sais quoi feeling of having seen and heard it all but only now she thinks it’s cooler because SHE is saying it. So if you are up for some rather insensible (and insensitive) bulldozing of sorts as adapted for the Luxembourger golden cage environment scoot over to the monthly dosh being served at “Bitch de Lux’s” grove.

Our attention was brought to the articles by persons who felt that the Bitch (her moniker not mine) might be getting too personal on the columns (and I am not referring to the cliché rant of hamalli vs rest or the trendy line of dissing Maltese men in favour of those oh so handsome Luxembourgers – spare me). I wouldn’t worry guys and gals … as in most similar gossip based cases… she may be a bitch (again, her choice not mine)… but methinks that the bark is much louder than the bite…

(*) An English language newspaper in Malta that is no longer published.

1. Understanding Corruption

What exactly is corruption in Malta? The trail of MEPA incidents provide an interesting subject for this kind of question. We had allegations (an interesting word of itself) of corruption all of which can be watered down to the allegation that someone obtained something unduly and that the obtaining of that thing was through an action of corruption.

The act of corrupting therefore is necessary for Mr X (whoever he is) to obtain something – a right, a permit, a grant – which he would otherwise not be entitled to (or for which he would have to overcome much competition to obtain under normal conditions). In the case of MEPA it is almost always permits – permission to proceed with development that would otherwise either not have been allowed or would have required a much longer period to obtain.